“

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

” - Annie Dillard

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

“

"These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions" ... we are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

” - Aristotle/Durant

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

I've been working on the 'Panic & depersonalization' handouts list in the Good Knowledge section of this website.  The list contains most of the handouts and questionnaires I currently use when working with people suffering from panic disorder, agoraphobia or depersonalization/ derealization disorder.  Here they are with brief descriptions: 

“

The past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time.  It expands later, & thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

” - Virginia Woolf

The US DSM IV diagnostic system describes the "essential features" of agoraphobia in the following way: "There is intense fear of, or discomfort in, settings from which escape is difficult or embarrassing, or in which help (e.g. to alleviate a panic attack) is not available."  It then adds the following three criteria:

I'm gradually adding content to the 'Good Knowledge' database.  I've just put in some information on agoraphobia.  It reads: 

Manber, R., J. D. Edinger, et al. (2008).

“

There isn't any secret formula or method. You learn to love by loving, by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.

” - Aldous Huxley

The "Improving Access to Psychological Therapies" (IAPT) initiative is very ambitious and exciting.  It states its principal aim is to support English Primary Care Trusts in implementing "National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence" (NICE) guidelines for people suffering from depression and anxiety disorders.  It comments "The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme began in 2008 and has transformed treatment of adult anxiety disorders and depression in England. Over 900,000 people now access IAPT services each year, and the 'five year forward view for mental health' committed to expanding services further, alongside improving quality."  

“

Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourselfl

” - Miles Davis

Here are many of the handouts and questionnaires I use currently (autumn '09) when working with people suffering from panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD or depersonalization/derealization disorder. 

“ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. ” - Walt Whitman

Here are a series of assessment questionnaires and handouts for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Health Anxiety Disorder.  Note that the 2010 Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies "IAPT Data Handbook" recommends using the GAD-7 to monitor progress in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and the short 18-item version of the Health Anxiety Questionnaire to monitor Health Anxiety progress. 

GAD, 2 question screen - answering "yes" to either of the two screening questions on this sheet suggests it's worth checking for a diagnosis of full Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - for example by using the GADQ (see below).